Monday, February 23, 2009

Sousa, Stars and Stripes Forever! Offers Taste of Past with Timeless Music

The Army Ground Forces Band invites you to spend a mid-March day with “The March King,” John Philip Sousa, at the Georgia Tech Ferst Center for the Arts, Sunday, March 15, 3 p.m. No tickets are required.

Sousa, Stars and Stripes Forever! is a free and unabashedly patriotic concert that offers Atlantans an opportunity to step back in time to when the concert band was king of the entertainment scene.

“This will be a fun concert performed by our world-class musicians in the style of the famous Sousa Band,” said the band commander, Maj. Domingos Robinson.

“In addition to Sousa marches such as The Stars and Stripes Forever, we will be playing great pieces from Sousa’s time that will include works by Franz von Suppé, Percy Grainger and Richard Wagner.”

The band will showcase its principal trombonist, Sgt. 1st Class Chris Rozmarin, performing Arthur Pryor’s Blue Bells of Scotland and the horn section performing Robert Schumann’s Concertpiece for Four Horns.

Sousa's formula for a great concert was to include orchestral music, solo compositions, novelty pieces and patriotic music, fulfilling his dual purpose of entertaining the audience and bringing the best music available to the public.

He would follow up most songs on the program with a march that was not printed in the program.

His band exposed the masses to both great classical pieces and his own original compositions by extensive touring that took him to small towns all over the United States from 1892 to 1932. His became a household name in large part because his programming style was so effective.For more about the concert and the band, go to www.armygroundforcesband.com or call 404-464-5676.---www.FayetteFrontPage.comFayette Front PageCommunity News You Can UseFayetteville, Peachtree City, Tyronewww.GeorgiaFrontPage.comwww.ArtsAcrossGeorgia.com---